


dreams of floods and a throatful of water

by Hecate



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Big Damn Heroes, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: The ocean is different





	dreams of floods and a throatful of water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wallflowering](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallflowering/gifts).

Croc knows darkness, knows the nooks and crannies of the world beneath city streets, the tepid water that so easily gives in to him. It's his world, his kingdom, and he has slaughtered monsters there.

He has been a hero.

But the ocean … the ocean is different. It's grey waves tipped with wild whites. It's currents that push and pull, waves that are jealous of every being that can fight them. It's dead-eyed beasts that look at the world above them with disdain and judge it with sharp teeth. The ocean is an angry darkness, pitiless and without remorse.

And Croc is sinking in it, the light above him fading away, swallowed whole.

Deeper beneath him, in the dark, there is something waiting for him.

~*~

“Five women drowned in this area in the last five weeks,” Waller said, voice tight, impatient. “We were asked for help.”

Flag raised his eyebrows at her words. “Because we're the coast guard now?” 

And Croc knew him enough by now to hear an impatience that mirrored Waller's in his voice, annoyance at his team's resources being wasted.

“No,” Waller replied. “Because when they found the bodies, the hearts were missing.”

~*~

The water is heavy around him, hard and unyielding, and it refuses to let him slip through. It's an anchor falling into the deep, and Croc fights against it, claws his way free for scattered moments before it pulls him back. It's a cat playing with a mouse.

Somewhere from below him, where it is darker still, the watery echoes of laughter.

~*~

They had looked at the autopsy reports before they left, rows of pictures, empty faces and white skin. Neat stitches in the bodies where the examiner cut into them and sewed them up. Bruises in blues and greys but no other injury.

And still, a missing heart.

“This,” Deadshot said, “is fucked up.”

Nobody replied.

~*~

There is pressure now, the ocean throwing itself on Croc from above, punching the air from his lungs, and there is a roar in his ears, angry and mocking.

A whirl in the currents, sharks racing in front of it.

Fleeing.

A woman, scales-skinned, her scalp bare, a fin where her legs should be. 

She looks at him in the dark, deep down in the ocean, and she grins with rows of teeth. She grins at him, and even with the water's fingers around his throat, Croc knows she is hungry.

~*~

GQ sat with him in the helicopter, his leg pressed against Croc's, his head leaned back against his seat. His neck exposed, a line of fragile skin. At his collar, the edges of a bruise, the memory of teeth pressed into skin and GQ letting it happen.

Croc spent a long time looking at it.

Later, when he caught Deadshot's smirk, he opened his mouth, showed his teeth. Dared him to say a word.

~*~

Her hands are reaching out for him, her hands are touching him, and she's pulling him closer, still smiling, still grinning. And Croc distantly thinks of fighting her, thinks his hands should be fists. Thinks he should be afraid.

But he's just cold.

And he is still sinking.

~*~

GQ suited up in the belly of the boat, diving suit and oxygen tank, an arsenal of explosives spread out around his feet.

Croc watched him from a corner, watched Flag, too.

Flag, Croc though, was worried.

Croc was worried, too.

“Not my first rodeo,” GQ said, the flicker of a grin on his lips.

“Yeah,” Flag agreed.

“Last time, there was a goddess. And I blew up her brother.” Another grin, daring and too sharp to be beautiful. 

“And you died,” Flag said.

GQ shrugged. “For a little while. Wasn't a fan.”

A breath, a little bit too steady. A lamb that knows the way to the slaughter. GQ squeezing Flag's shoulder.

And Croc bent down, grabbed one of the bombs GQ had prepared before Flag could notice.

Before GQ could stop him.

Turned around and left.

“Hey,” GQ called out behind him. “Wait up.”

But Croc didn't.

~*~

Her lips are ice against his, cold and cruel. And her hands are manacles, are anchors, and his skin is screaming everywhere she touches him, pain spreading from her fingers.

There's panic, suddenly, animal instinct waking up, and Croc is lashing out, is fighting. But it's useless, he is useless here in the dark, in her home, her kingdom.

She is a monster.

She knows no heroes.

And Croc's body feels like it's caving in; it's giving in to her, to the ocean, and his heart is giving out.

But somewhere above him, at the edge of his vision, a light.

It's coming closer.

~*~

He stopped at the stern of the boat, the sky blazing blue above him, the ocean wild ahead of him. The wind called out, a bird's cry, a song echoing from the land, and for a stupid moment, Croc heard a warning in the sound.

Croc thought of GQ dead in the water under Midway City. He thought of the way GQ pressed his mouth to his in a quick moment between Croc's cell and the helicopter, and he ignored the noise of the land and the noise of the sea.

And he dove into new water.

~*~

For a moment, he sees something above the dropping light, something fragile and clumsy, and he knows the very shape of it, every line familiar. For a moment, there is nothing but fear.

Because GQ is down there. With him. With her.

But the light is still dropping; a small, blinking thing. And Croc knows GQ's explosives, he knows the way GQ thinks in fire and pressure waves when Croc himself lets himself be guided by the water. He tells himself to be ready.

Knows that he won't be.

But he can't stop it.

The explosion ripples through the ocean like a fist, brutal, careless, and it brings a shock wave with it. Suddenly, the water falls out of rhythm, and Croc is free of the woman's grip, is free of the currents and the ocean.

And she's gone.

But there is blood in the water. And there are sharks. There is, somewhere close, a monster that can steal a heart. 

Croc swims up, against the pressure and against the tide, and he sees a body in the dark, unmoving. Croc reaches out for GQ; he reaches out and he catches him. And then he's kicking out; he's kicking and clawing, and he thinks of tunnels and thinks of water dark with dirt, a human mess. 

Croc thinks _home_.

GQ is heavy in his grip, the ocean holding on to him. And Croc thinks _mine_, and he thinks _you can't have him_.

The ocean answers, furious. _Prove it._

Below him, slivers of silver and blue and green, fins and teeth and hunger, twins of the women that caught him just moments before.

Above him, far away and still untouchable, light.

And Croc follows its promise.

~*~

The ocean was cold around him, foreign and vast, and yet it opened up to him.

Croc thought, for a moment, that GQ might be pissed at him for taking the leap when it should have been GQ's, thought that GQ wouldn't understand. But GQ was breakable.

And in the water, Croc wasn't.

~*~

Flag is there when Croc breaks through the water, Flag and Deadshot and Katana. There are hands reaching out for him and GQ, sure hands he can almost trust. He pushes GQ to them, watchful, and he promises himself that the ocean wouldn't touch GQ again.

Then, after GQ is on the boat, when he is safe with men that know bullets and guns and a woman with a haunted sword in her hands, he pulls himself out of the water. The waves groan in protest when they have to let him go, raw and disappointed.

Croc doesn't care. 

Can't care. 

Because GQ lies on the deck, Flag by his side, and Croc wants him to open his eyes.

But GQ doesn't.

He doesn't when Flag shakes him.

Doesn't when Deadshot curses and drops to his knees next to Flag, his fingers on GQ's throat.

Doesn't when Katana's hands hit his chest, strong palms pressing down again and again.

Doesn't and doesn't and doesn't and Croc roars to the ocean and he sinks down and he reaches out for GQ's hand. It's cold in his, lifeless.

Future-less.

Croc closes his eyes and he thinks of the woman at the bottom of the ocean, and he knows that GQ's bombs killed her just like the one before killed Diablo. He thinks of her sisters and brothers that rose up to meet them just moments ago, deadly shapes in the water. 

And Croc whispers promises into the wind, whispers threats. Hopes that the air knows how to carry his message into the ocean.

Waits.

And doesn't let go of GQ's hand.

~*~

At the beginning, diving into the ocean was easy.

It felt like it was answering Croc's call.

~*~

“Sharks,” the captain of their boat says, voice calm. Then, a pause. A frown on a weathered face. “What the...”

And Croc knows that the shapes in the water, the shapes circling the boat, aren't sharks, are something quite different. His hand tightens around GQ's.

Then, suddenly, GQ is sputtering and coughing up water, his body shaking. He's fighting to sit up, to move, jerking away from the water beneath him, the water hiding beneath the boat. Croc can hardly hold on to him.

But GQ is looking around, panicked, until he finds Croc, until Croc pulls him closer again, and GQ collapses again, breathes hard. Reaching out for Croc. His hand still clammy in Croc's hand and his pulse wild beneath his skin; his blue eyes wide and so much like the sky and nothing like the ocean.

Croc wraps his fingers around GQ's wrist, bends down and presses his lips right where he can feel GQ's pulse. Rests, just for a few seconds, a few minutes, and wraps his arms around GQ.

Looks up, so much later, with the boat closing in on the harbor and GQ warming up beneath him, and bares his teeth at the sight of the ocean.

A wave bows down to him, amused.

Unmoved.


End file.
